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An exclusive interview with Malaysian Minister of Tourism Dato Sri Dr. Ng Yen Yen during the ASEAN Travel Forum.
Malaysia will host ATF 2014 in Kuching, Sarawak. Why did your Ministry choose this destination?
Ng Yen Yen- ATF was already hosted in Kuala Lumpur and in Langkawi, showing two different aspects of our tourism product, an urban sophisticated experience and an island experience. We want this time to show an exotic relaxing and pristine destination. Sarawak is close to nature and works also as a model for community-related tourism. The State offers many natural sites of exceptional beauty which stand under the UNESCO World Heritage list such as Mulu caves. We finally also acknowledge the efforts of Sarawak to become an important tourist player. Infrastructures have been developed over the last decade with a recent International Convention Centre offering now state-of-the-art facilities.
Culture and heritage have gained in importance in your promotional efforts. What are the new products you would like to see emphasized?
Ng Yen Yen- I want to let people know more about our aboriginal culture. Just to start with the various ethnics around the country. Do you know that Malaysia records officially 147 ethnic groups, many of them being unique for the Island of Borneo, in the States of Sabah and Sarawak? I really want to show our original culture, what we term as “asli” in Malay language. I also want to bring tourists to Carey Island, south of Port Klang and not to far from Kuala Lumpur. It is still home of Mah-Meri, an aborigine tribe creating extraordinary sculptures.
How about heritage in common with other countries?
Ng Yen Yen- We already started to work with other countries on heritage tours long time ago. We launched two years ago the 1-2-3 heritage sites to visit, linking Melaka, Penang and Yogyakarta. We look now to link p our two UNESCO heritage cities of Penang and Melaka with Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Luang Prabang in Laos. I really think that ASEAN is a great opportunity to create multi-countries heritage tours. The region is a breed of different cultures, ethnics, religions which is reflected in arts, cuisine and customs. They are more areas to be highlighted in terms of multi-country heritage tourism and we continue to explore them.
2014 will be a new Visit Year Malaysia. How will it be different from previous similar events?
Ng Yen Yen- We seriously take this task at heart and want this time to bundle all the nation’s forces behind the Visit Year. We launched the preparation of Visit Year Malaysia 2014 early this month with a big event where our Prime Minister himself exhorted all Malaysians to stand all together and show their best in terms of hospitality and sense of welcome. We want to infuse this sense of pride to all of us and be a perfect host for all of our guests. The endorsement of our Prime Minister is an encouragement to everyone to improve himself to truly welcome our tourists. It goes from immigration and customs officers to taxi drivers, sales assistants in shops and of course people in the streets. I know for example that our taxis have gained a bad reputation for their lack of service and courtesy. We tackled seriously this issue with a training program under the scheme of creating taxi tourism ambassadors. Some 4,000 taxis of Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding have already received this training. We will pursue our efforts to further improve tourists’ experience in our country.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
